Town of folk slowly turned into cacti, this was something like a novella & featured photos (or perhaps drawings, but I am pretty sure there were black & white photos...). It was in a kids library (I'm imagining aimed at 12-16 or older age group).

If this is a fake memory, it's a weird one. If it's not, then how/why the hell did the publisher see fit to include photos (even if black & white)?

I'm looking for the one comic of men apologizing. Someone's cat runs away at some point, but the joke is that no matter who is wrong, the man has to apologize to the woman. Anyone help me? (forum newbie)

bookwyrm5000 wrote:I'm looking for the one comic of men apologizing. Someone's cat runs away at some point, but the joke is that no matter who is wrong, the man has to apologize to the woman. Anyone help me? (forum newbie)

I'm pretty sure it was a Doghouse Diaries. I'll take a quick skim of their archive to see if something stands out.

bookwyrm5000 wrote:I'm looking for the one comic of men apologizing. Someone's cat runs away at some point, but the joke is that no matter who is wrong, the man has to apologize to the woman. Anyone help me? (forum newbie)

I'm pretty sure it was a Doghouse Diaries. I'll take a quick skim of their archive to see if something stands out.

drego642 wrote:I can't honestly say that it isn't possible that I am thinking of Eragon, but I feel as though I'd have remembered picking up a book that was so widely-read at the time. Also, Eragon has a lot more fantasy elements than I remember mystery book having. I feel like this book seems like it had more of a feel of, "some random ordinary kid who just happens to have come across a dragon egg." This feeling could be wrong though, granted..

If I recall correctly, the first part of the first book of Eragon does not have that many fantasy elements in it, only the egg and the remote, medieval-like village part. However, I don't know for sure as I was bored rather quickly by the book and put it down after only a few chapters.

TomKat wrote:I'm looking for a webcomic strip (not xkcd) that has 3-4 panes with Spiderman chasing some criminals through New York, as they are saying "JUST A BIT FURTHER!" then in the final page it shows them driving out of the city into the countryside laughing while Spiderman is stuck on a skyscraper saying "oh... well I'll get you when you come back!" or similar.

I think that this particular comic was a one-off and it usually had a group of 3-4 characters, the main one who was supposed to be quite cool and who was a bit of a player. He lived with another guy who was a bit nerdy and there were some girls in it too I think. The sketches of the comic were penny-arcade style, with cartoony characters in full colour. I think the name of the comic was simply the name of the main character, however not sure on this. Comics were typically 5-10 frames.

Googling for "Spiderman comic blah blah blah" obviously comes up with loads of other results and from looking at a list of webcomics I can't find the one I mean. It's annoying me

I realize it's a year+ later, but the comic is "Least I could do", and you're right that that particular one was a throw away. And if you are going through the archives, don't be surprised if the art style doesn't look right, it changed artists a couple of times.

Zapheod wrote:I read this book about 5 years ago but I believe it was old at the time.

Book is about the life of a time traveler who learns that his race specifically time travels and destroys or limits technological abilities of other species to ensure nobody can ever challenge them. He goes about ending this practice.

What a coincidence! Just yesterday, someone was explaining the plot of "The End of Eternity" to me.

Looks interesting(and I will probably go buy it) but not that book I was thinking of. The time traveling ability of these beings is an innate ability and not tech driven. The can also travel through space without the use of any tech. The protagonist is a young boy who ages through adulthood during the book.

It's a scifi short story, probably from the 50's or 60's, where there are 2 astronauts who are going into orbit in some sort of moon shot. While they are going up, one is talking about how it would be interesting if, now that humans are going to space, we find that it's all a simulation and that the moon and stars aren't real. Then

Spoiler:

while they are turning around they see the 'back' of the moon - it turns out that it was all a simulation done on Earth to find out if people could withstand the psychological pressures of going into orbit, but they never believe the ground crew that it was all made up.

Crabtree's bludgeon: “no set of mutually inconsistent observations can exist for which some human intellect cannot conceive a coherent explanation, however complicated”

Some years ago I remember reading an April Fool's style spoof entitled "Chess 2", in which Chess is trussed up with all kinds of silly backstory about the pieces in a misguided attempt to give it depth. I thought it might have been buried in Gamespot's old Special Features (what a treasure trove), but I can't seem to find it there. Does this ring a bell?

I remember a book about time travel, where the last story involves the traveler going to the far future, where humanity has evolved (or been replaced) by lizardmen, who use a machine to teach him their language. When he somehow *recreates* his own time, he realizes that everyone now talks in lizard.

I'm trying to remember the name of I believe a series I read some time ago.

Here is what I remember

Space travel initially is done by putting people into suspended animation. However the rich also use to hold on to their power by being awake at little as possible. At some point there is such a backlash against this, that it is not even using it for space travel. Effectually eliminating interstellar travel from society for a period of time.

The main character (for most of the series) has the ability to read minds.

He gets sent to a planet along with group of people who dislike him at the least. They are all put into suspended animation

On the way there all but the main character and one other person looses there memory in an attack.

He gets to the planet, and it gets settled over time.

He returns to the ship and and it flies around the planet or it goes into the ocean, or somewhere.

There are two bloodlines created with different abilities.

They eventually merge and create a single bloodline, that everyone on the planet is a part of.

They watch over the rest of the universe, healing people, making them forget painful memories, etc all from there planet.

Eventually they find the main character, he scolds them and they blow up their planet.

The story is told by the main character at a ?farm? village so he left the planet before it got blown up

I've been looking for this book for at least six years, maybe someone here can help? I read it in the mid-to-late 1990s, in Romania. It was an anthology of short sci-fi stories written by authors all around the world - I remember some names were English, French, Russian, maybe some Czech. The cover featured a topless woman with dark green cargo pants balancing on/hanging from a beam, above an apocalyptic city in the background. I vividly remember some of the short stories. I would be so happy if I could put a name on even one of these short stories, not necessarily the full anthology.

Begin mind dump:

1. A stasis story: a male main character is put in a morgue-like drawer and enters a virtual reality world, or rather a game, in which he finds and follows an elusive woman that doesn't play by the rules of that game (she is a "glitch", but she is a real living human somewhere, just as he is). She helps him along and together they fight and dodge an antagonist that aims to eliminate the woman. The game takes place in a tall building, and each "level" corresponds to an actual level of the building. I remember that they move illegally through levels by squeezing through mouse holes, of all things. I remember really well how this was described in the book by the main character: "The holes were terribly small but we managed, first a finger, a hand, then an elbow, then our shoulders and we were through". The main character keeps getting woken up because the overseeing people can tell there is something wrong. Every time he goes back he reaches further and further in. In the end, he and the woman are at the top of the building they were moving through, and the woman is naked (but of course) and they face off their antagonist.2. A story that happens in Topeka, Kansas (the first time I encountered that strange name and I was fascinated by it), with a male character that finds a girl changing in an empty gymnasium and sees for the first time how women put on bras. He is fascinated by how she puts on her bra backwards, clasps it in front of her, then turns it around to put the cups on.3. The first short story in the book is about monstrously huge, stinky spiders. A father drives his family into an isolated, abandoned house in the woods, trying to escape the spiders, but the spiders sense them, and they all end up mummified in spiderwebs, I think. A great story of suspense.4. A heartwarming, terrifying story of a sister and brother that wake up simultaneously in pods in a strange room. They manage to exit the room, only to find themselves in a dark tunnel. They start walking along the tunnel towards a pinprick of light. Once there, they realize they are in a metro tunnel and that they have reached a metro station that lays in ruins. The siblings remember they have been sealed away, safely put in stasis, by their father. They notice soft flakes falling around them in the ruins of the station. The last line is the sister's (I believe) realization that the flakes that are not snow but ashes, ashes from the nuclear winter.

...No wonder I remember these stories so well, in retrospective these were not very child-friendly.

Ah, also, there was another book I read as a child in one sitting, as fast as I could, because I borrowed it from a friend for only one day. I think the author was French? It was about a magical black cat named Charbonnel or something like that. (Googling "Charbonnel" and "Carbonnel" doesn't bring up anything.) A girl takes in the cat, magical adventures ensue. At some point the girl has to put together seven items, each of one color of the rainbow, for a purpose I don't exactly remember (maybe to lift the curse from the cat?). I remember that the last item she uses is a red umbrella.EDIT: Found it, with more persistent Googling. It's Carbonel: The King of Cats, by Barbara Sleigh. There's even a Wikipedia page.

BlackSails wrote:I remember a book about time travel, where the last story involves the traveler going to the far future, where humanity has evolved (or been replaced) by lizardmen, who use a machine to teach him their language. When he somehow *recreates* his own time, he realizes that everyone now talks in lizard.

BlackSails wrote:I remember a book about time travel, where the last story involves the traveler going to the far future, where humanity has evolved (or been replaced) by lizardmen, who use a machine to teach him their language. When he somehow *recreates* his own time, he realizes that everyone now talks in lizard.

gametaku wrote:I'm trying to remember the name of I believe a series I read some time ago.

Here is what I remember

Space travel initially is done by putting people into suspended animation. However the rich also use to hold on to their power by being awake at little as possible. At some point there is such a backlash against this, that it is not even using it for space travel. Effectually eliminating interstellar travel from society for a period of time.

The main character (for most of the series) has the ability to read minds.

He gets sent to a planet along with group of people who dislike him at the least. They are all put into suspended animation

On the way there all but the main character and one other person looses there memory in an attack.

He gets to the planet, and it gets settled over time.

He returns to the ship and and it flies around the planet or it goes into the ocean, or somewhere.

There are two bloodlines created with different abilities.

They eventually merge and create a single bloodline, that everyone on the planet is a part of.

They watch over the rest of the universe, healing people, making them forget painful memories, etc all from there planet.

Eventually they find the main character, he scolds them and they blow up their planet.

The story is told by the main character at a ?farm? village so he left the planet before it got blown up

This is The Worthing Saga by Orson Scott Card.

When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up. - CS Lewis

gametaku wrote:I'm trying to remember the name of I believe a series I read some time ago.

Here is what I remember

Space travel initially is done by putting people into suspended animation. However the rich also use to hold on to their power by being awake at little as possible. At some point there is such a backlash against this, that it is not even using it for space travel. Effectually eliminating interstellar travel from society for a period of time.

The main character (for most of the series) has the ability to read minds.

He gets sent to a planet along with group of people who dislike him at the least. They are all put into suspended animation

On the way there all but the main character and one other person looses there memory in an attack.

He gets to the planet, and it gets settled over time.

He returns to the ship and and it flies around the planet or it goes into the ocean, or somewhere.

There are two bloodlines created with different abilities.

They eventually merge and create a single bloodline, that everyone on the planet is a part of.

They watch over the rest of the universe, healing people, making them forget painful memories, etc all from there planet.

Eventually they find the main character, he scolds them and they blow up their planet.

The story is told by the main character at a ?farm? village so he left the planet before it got blown up

I had a book/anthology/treasury of fairy tales when I was young, and would love to find it on e-bay or whatever, if only I could find the title or author or anything useful like that.

It had to have been printed before 1980, but probably sometime between 1920 and 1965.

It was a hardback book, the same dimensions as another book I had - Just Imagine! by the New Basic Readers, 1962 edition, which I can find easily on e-bay, so about 8 x 5 x 0.75 inches, give or take (probably 255 pages or so like that one). (I always associated these two books, the "yellow one" and the "blue one" when I was a kid, so I think it might have come from the same source - perhaps an elementary school clearing sale in the 1960's when my mother was a child.) The cover was dark blue (no jacket), possibly with even darker blue or black printing on it although I'm not sure about that part. It had pictures, but they were drawings, not in color.

One chapter was about giants. One chapter was about fairies, and included the tale of Sleeping Beauty (with no influence from Disney) - I remember there were 13 fairies but the king and queen only had twelve plates so the one got left out and got her revenge.) One chapter was about Brownies - I think it was called "___s, Brownies, and other tiny folk" or something like that. I remember brownies specifically, as I have never heard of them otherwise (until recently, in looking for this book.)

Kevin E wrote:Town of folk slowly turned into cacti, this was something like a novella & featured photos (or perhaps drawings, but I am pretty sure there were black & white photos...). It was in a kids library (I'm imagining aimed at 12-16 or older age group).

If this is a fake memory, it's a weird one. If it's not, then how/why the hell did the publisher see fit to include photos (even if black & white)?

This one has been killing me. And here is what I remember. Two children (twins?), one male, the other female. In the beginning, the book explained that the boy was always getting in trouble at school. And when he was called to the office, he would usually detour to the bathroom for ten minutes first. And on one particular day (I think it was still the first chapter), he was called to the office. This is where the book explained what I just said, and basically said that the principle was going to be surprised because he decided to go straight there. But when he got there, the sister was already there too (she never got in trouble).

The book explains that their parents just died. They end up going to their uncles to live, whom they've rarely seen (if at all). And somehow they end up on a plain going somewhere. The girl and boy end up in the planes cargo hold where the boy accidentally presses a button and the doors open up. They find parachutes and fall to a forest. They later learn that the uncle lived in the forest for a while doing research (something about dinosaurs?) and seek shelter in his old tree house.

In the end, there were guys hunting the boy down after kidnapping both the sister and uncle. They were looking for the dinosaur eggs, which were very expensive. The boy pulled a trick by filling an empty egg with oil and smashing it against a tree in front of the bad guys. I can't remember the end of the book.

I read this in maybe third grade (2002, 2003) as a required assignment. It sounds a lot like Jungle of Bones, but that ain't it.

my sister wrote:[the sun] can go to Hell and brighten that place up a while.

I don't remember there being any actual dinosaurs (just the eggs). The kids had these things I imagined as being close to iPads (or iPad sized iPhones because they had GPS and video chat, etc.). I think the twins got separated during the fall, and the boy got to the tree house first. The uncle told the kids where the tree house was, which is how they found it. I don't think the uncle got to the kids until the end of the book.

But the one you posted was very close, it seems like.

my sister wrote:[the sun] can go to Hell and brighten that place up a while.

free-bee wrote:Two children (twins?), one male, the other female. In the beginning, the book explained that the boy was always getting in trouble at school. And when he was called to the office, he would usually detour to the bathroom for ten minutes first. And on one particular day (I think it was still the first chapter), he was called to the office. This is where the book explained what I just said, and basically said that the principle was going to be surprised because he decided to go straight there. But when he got there, the sister was already there too (she never got in trouble).

The book explains that their parents just died. They end up going to their uncles to live, whom they've rarely seen (if at all). And somehow they end up on a plain going somewhere. The girl and boy end up in the planes cargo hold where the boy accidentally presses a button and the doors open up. They find parachutes and fall to a forest. They later learn that the uncle lived in the forest for a while doing research (something about dinosaurs?) and seek shelter in his old tree house...I don't remember there being any actual dinosaurs (just the eggs). The kids had these things I imagined as being close to iPads (or iPad sized iPhones because they had GPS and video chat, etc.). I think the twins got separated during the fall, and the boy got to the tree house first. The uncle told the kids where the tree house was, which is how they found it. I don't think the uncle got to the kids until the end of the book.

That's it. This has been killing me for about a month now. I'm glad to finally know the name, now that the conversation happened 20+ days ago and the person I was telling won't be back for another 10+.

my sister wrote:[the sun] can go to Hell and brighten that place up a while.

A friend posted this request on Facebook, and googling hasn't been helpful to me, so I thought maybe someone else here might have an inkling of what book she's talking about?

I know this is probably a really long shot, but there was a book I read as a kid that I loved and I cannot remember the name of it. It was about an American boy that befriends a 'troubled' part-Native American teenager. A kind of coming of age story about their friendship, but I can't remember exactly what happens, except it was set in Colorado, they liked watching condors flying, at one point they go on a car journey and are blasting Motley Crue, and the Native American kid slices his hand to shreds and has to go to hospital. Anyone have ANY idea what this book is? It's been driving me mad all day and Google hasn't helped!

Unless stated otherwise, I do not care whether a statement, by itself, constitutes a persuasive political argument. I care whether it's true.---If this post has math that doesn't work for you, use TeX the World for Firefox or Chrome

For the life of me, and my Google-fu, I cannot locate the comic I'm looking for. I'm trying to send it to someone, because the comic is relevant to a conversation we had this morning. The comic's essential idea was the farther away from a destination you are, the earlier you will be, but the closer to that destination you are, the later you will be. Does anyone know which comic this was? And if you do, can you link it? I'm 99% certain that the comic I'm thinking of was an XKCD comic.

Master_Taco wrote:For the life of me, and my Google-fu, I cannot locate the comic I'm looking for. I'm trying to send it to someone, because the comic is relevant to a conversation we had this morning. The comic's essential idea was the farther away from a destination you are, the earlier you will be, but the closer to that destination you are, the later you will be. Does anyone know which comic this was? And if you do, can you link it? I'm 99% certain that the comic I'm thinking of was an XKCD comic.

I have no idea what the Comic is.The concept is valid.

If I am a few doors away from The Meeting, I may show up as it gets started or just after.If I am two continents and an ocean away, I will be days to weeks early.

I might wanter off, get lost and miss the fucking meeting.

Life is, just, an exchange of electrons; It is up to us to give it meaning.

We are all in The Gutter.Some of us see The Gutter.Some of us see The Stars.by mr. Oscar Wilde.

Those that want to Know; Know.Those that do not Know; Don't tell them.They do terrible things to people that Tell Them.

Master_Taco wrote:For the life of me, and my Google-fu, I cannot locate the comic I'm looking for. I'm trying to send it to someone, because the comic is relevant to a conversation we had this morning. The comic's essential idea was the farther away from a destination you are, the earlier you will be, but the closer to that destination you are, the later you will be. Does anyone know which comic this was? And if you do, can you link it? I'm 99% certain that the comic I'm thinking of was an XKCD comic.

maydayp wrote:it has two authors one male, who's sold at least 3 books, the other is female, who hadn't sold any (from the bio on the back cover). I assume they are married as they have the same last name. I believe the woman has the same initial for both her first and last name. the book is set on earth, after a biological (warfare?) disaster. there are way more women then men, and they are just regaining their technology (going rapidly from hunter-gatherer to having electricity and car) which they lost due to lack of workers, and the fact that most of the cities became sparsely populated. men are pampered and and treated like fragile objects (though the women in the main clan recognize that men are people they have to put the restrictions on them so they will survive into adulthood- which is rare)in this book a women leaves her clan (clan is my wording not the book's) to go to the city to get fertility tests and to investigate a group of people who want to join their's. she travels with her dogs and finds an orphan baby, and discovers she's pregnant (with twins).she gets hurt along the way and is rescued by a man pretending to be a woman (so he can live alone) he is found and taken to one of the large cities/towns that are still around- which is under the control of a very military structure group (Which might have a "[metal]town" name). she destroys it from the inside out -and takes a female lover during this time. she loses the dog(s) she brings with her, the ruler of the city takes them away, the last one is trying to make his way home (and this still almost makes me cry) after being left for dead 'cause she didn't think he could have survived what he went through, he is severely injured and I'm not sure if he makes it back to her or not, I'll hope he does, else I don't know why that was put in the the book (at the very end).

it occurs in the US, in a currently rural area, where there were once forests (now mostly gone) which grew back, and they live on a farm.oh, and I read this book originally in like 2003 and again in 2008.